No wonder they are angry
So, Charlie Gere.
I find Jo Glanville’s defence of the publication of Aisha, the Jewel of Medina as an act of courage on the part of the publisher ridiculous. Would she be so ready to describe as an act of courage a decision to publish a book denying the Holocaust, or advocating paedophilia, or race hate, or antisemitism, or violence against women? Probably not.
No, probably not, but what does that tell us? More than the trivial conclusion that Gere draws, which is that ‘there are limits to her conception of freedom of speech.’ Yes of course there are, but the point is not that there are no such limits, the point is that the limits should be as narrow as possible not as broad as possible, and that that entails making judgments about what kinds of limits there should be and what kinds of reasons should be offered and accepted for drawing those limits where we do. Gere’s question is useless for that purpose, because the examples he gives are all different in kind from the example of a novel about Aisha. A book denying the Holocaust is likely to be in the service of a larger and more dangerous – more genuinely harmful – agenda. A book advocating paedophilia could cause real harm to real children, as could a book advocating race hate or violence against women. A novel about Aisha isn’t like that. So it’s a stupid comparison. It’s one that Ahmedinijad (among others) is very fond of, but it’s stupid.
The issue with this book and others that have offended Muslims, including The Satanic Verses, is that their publication is liable to give Muslims the possibly correct impression that a culture riddled with its own shibboleths, taboos and areas of interdiction does not consider it a problem to offend their sensitivities, not least by trivialising their religion and their culture in works of fiction. This is far worse than being anti-Muslim. It treats Muslim sensitivities as being beneath consideration. No wonder they are angry.
See above. The shibboleths, taboos and areas of interdiction in question are not a matter of ‘offending sensitivities’ or of ‘trivialising’ someone’s culture or religion. Shibboleths of that kind are neither legally binding, nor generally respected, nor (on the whole) backed up by threats and violence.
A more reasonable question for Gere to have asked would have been ‘Would she be so ready to describe as an act of courage a decision to publish a book about Jesus’s love life?’ The first part of the answer would probably be ‘Well no, because there would be no need for courage because there would be no risk involved.’ The second part would probably be ‘But if there were risk involved because of firebombs shoved through the letter box at 2 a.m., then yes, I certainly would.’
In other words, directly advocating violence or crime against people is one thing and discussing a religion (challengingly or rudely or mockingly or however it may be) is another. It’s odd that a guy who does something called ‘Cultural Research’ is confused about this.
I used to live next door to the Institute for Cultural Research. I always suspected it was full of postmodernist fools.
Someone should turn Gere’s question on its head and ask if he thinks it would be okay to set fire to the house of David Irving’s publisher.
Ha! And now you know your suspicions were correct.
So, I wonder. If some random nutjob murdered Charlie Gere in hot blood in the street, and claimed that the reason for the killing was that Mr. Gere offended his free speech sensibilities, would Christopher Howse write, succinctly and sans judgment, “So Gere was killed.”
No, I suppose not.
A pair of perfidious peas in a pustulent pod, these two.
I’d even go so far as to say, with freedom of speech in mind (even if it’s daft speech, go ahead with a book denying the Holocaust, since it’s so ridiculous that it would be laughed off the shelves, except by the Irvings of this world, who, thankfully, are in a minority. But, as you say, the others directly incite violence or potential violence, whereas a book (be it about the Holocaust or Aisha or Mohammed himself) does not – except, as we have seen, indirectly using similar logic to , “We’re a peaceful religion and we’ll kick the shit out of you if you say we’re not”.
Don’t you just *love* ‘Guardianistas’?
“I’m so involved in my self-righteous rant that I’ve completely failed to see the illogical idiocy I’ve written”
:-)
And, yeah, I know it’s not on the same scale, but when it comes to:
“there would be no need for courage because there would be no risk involved.”
it reminds me of Bill Hicks getting his legs broken by a couple of Jesus’ fanboys in the parking lot after a show…
I’ve been known to defend the passive voice (sometimes it’s the action not the actor that’s important) but the line:
“So van Gogh was killed.”
must be the most chilling piece of doublespeak I’ve heard in a very long time (or perhaps even outside of the history books).
“and so [s/he] was killed.”
I’m still trying to get my head around it.
Francis, true: icy cold, incredible, & for sure: not something you produce as a slip of the tongue.
Quite. And that ‘So’ is directly related to all those (lazy? craven? malicious?) journalistic accounts that say Rushdie ‘triggered’ outrage and the fatwa and that the Motoons ’caused’ fury and riots and arson and murder. ‘So’ nothing; ’caused’ nothing. It’s a sleight of hand to shift responsibility in a very loathsome way.
He also doesn’t seem to grasp that the author intends her novel as a sympathetic portrayal to introduce Western historical romance-readers to a time-period and characters that interest her. Whether it’s any good is another issue; but the intention is the opposite of offending.
Yes, Silverwhistle, so sympathetic, in fact, that it makes me just a little sick just to read about how gentle the old man was with a little girl.
Child-marriage was a fact in the Middle Ages in various cultures. That doesn’t justify it in the present day, but it’s absurd to expect characters in the distant past to behave according to contemporary mores. There have been historical novels previously about Margaret Beaufort, for example. She was probably rendered incapable of later childbearing by having the future Henry VII when she was a child herself; but in the 15C, her situation would not have been especially rare, nor would it have implied that her husband was abnormal.
It’s perhaps absurd to expect historical characters to observe contemporary mores, but that doesn’t mean we can’t argue that contemporary mores are in fact better. (Jeremy has a passage about exactly this issue in chapter 2 of Does God Hate Women?) Abnormal is one thing, and morally wrong is another. We think the slave trade was wrong, yes? We can think little girl-marriage was wrong too.
Yes, that’s true, Silverwhistle. My concern is not with the historical past, but with the romanticisation of that past today. That’s what the novel does, I gather, and that should be some cause for concern.
But if the romanticization of the past is a concern, then that is a concern with the historical past – isn’t it? It concerns you, I take it (correct me if I’m wrong) because it attempts to make that past look better than it in fact was. Why would that matter if it weren’t a concern?
The thing is, Mohammed is supposed to be exemplary now. Clerics cite Aisha when they are resisting law reforms that raise the age of marriage for girls: no no, 9 (or 6) was good enough for Mo, it’s good enough for us.
“A pair of perfidious peas in a pustulent pod, these two”
Nice one Cyril! I like it!
That’s right, Ophelia, that’s precisely why the romaticisation of the past is problematic. Mohammed is held to be exemplary. Could the prophet (or The Prophet) possibly do anything that is considered now, or then, to be wrong? If he can marry a 9 year old girl – or, perhaps, more correctly, consummate his marriage with a 9 year old girl – then, and it is something to be celebrated in the breathless way that apprently it is in The Jewel of Medina, this is a problem.
I should have thought, other things being equal, that Denise Spellberg is simply wrong. Muslims should be glad to have such a rosy idealisation of Mohammed’s marital relationships. And while I don’t think we should censor books, I suspect that Sherry Jones is just a bit too gushing for my taste, especially when it comes to celebrating sexual attachments to little girls.
I suspect that Jones is a great deal too gushing for my taste. Wretched Spellberg has forced us (so to speak) to defend what is probably a crap novel.
I also think Jones is utterly wrongheaded to write to Chaudhary to explain that her novel is friendly to Mo. The guy thinks dissing Mo should get the death penalty; she shouldn’t be sucking up to him.
Really, marrying a 9-year old girl, do you really think that was ‘normal’, at any time? Do you really think a lesser prophet would have gotten away with it even at those times?
It’s gross (& as a father of a 10-year old), so gross that it is one of those things that is gross throughout. Yes – cannibalism existed & exists but it is gross regardless of where & when. I am maybe forgiving for some who do or did it, carried away by nonsense of others but Mr. Mo doesn’t qualify here either as he clearly was the leader & not the follower.
“A crap novel”, doesn’t surprise me.
You’re right, Jones shouldn’t be sucking up to Chaudhary; but of course she’s be sucking up to Muslims from the start, saying that her book is a tribute to both Aisha and Mohammed. It’s meant to be a tribute, so sucking up is part of what the book is. We shouldn’t be surprised to see its author play the same game.
“It’s gross (& as a father of a 10-year old), so gross that it is one of those things that is gross throughout. Yes – cannibalism existed & exists but it is gross regardless of where & when.”
The problem with this approach is that it is simply the same as that taken by those who argue, for example, that sex before marriage, or contraception, or abortion, is simply wrong, everywhere and always. There is no scope for debate in such positions, merely material for a shouting-match in which push will rapidly come to shove.
If we cannot produce reasons why our moral intuitions ought to be translated into policy – reasons which might persuade others who disagree to look outside that disagreement for common ground – we will [for any and all values of ‘we’] always be reduced to imposing values by force. And there will remain no guarantee that the winning side, rather than being us, will in fact be the ‘them’ who are our worst nightmares.
Sorry, that last sentence needs an extra ‘not’. Teach me to be sententious in the morning…
Dave, where do you get to making this into moral intuition? I said gross, I didn’t use that word coincidentally – neither of your three examples have a bearing on 9-year old marriages. Your point is not lost on me but it is not to be connected to the grossness of a mature prophet marrying a 9-year old; that’s just simply gross.
Well but it isn’t just simply gross. It’s ‘gross’ for reasons – reasons which we could rather easily articulate. The trouble with saying ‘just simply gross’ is that that’s merely Leon Kass’s ‘Yuk’ and that can apply to anything and everything, and often does.
True.
But – sex before marriage and marriage with a 9-year old aren’t comparable by any scale. I don’t think that needs an elaborate paper unless you somehow are buying into “the pedophile actually is caring towards the child”-nuttery.
But JoB you’re just ignoring the point. You’re ignoring it in much the same way that Jenavir is. The issue isn’t people who already agree with you, the issue is people who don’t. And don’t kid yourself: there are such people. B&W News has had links quite recently to articles about attempts to reform the law on child marriage in Yemen – so far the law has been blocked by clerics who cite Mohammed as the reason: the example of Mo makes marriage (and sex) with a nine-year-old girl morally quite all right. Obviously it’s just not good enough to tell them it’s ‘simply gross’ to rape a nine-year-old girl, because they do not think it is.
Just to reinforce OB’s point, JoB, when you say, as you do: “I don’t think that needs an elaborate paper unless you somehow are buying into ‘the pedophile actually is caring towards the child’-nuttery.” The interesting thing is that the novel in dispute here actually idealises such a relationship, as a tribute to the girl/woman Aisha; but it also idealises Mohammed, who is shown to be gentle and caring with his child bride. Obviously, for some people, an elaborate paper is necessary, since some people do buy into the caring pedophile angle.
That’s why this whole discussion, defending a novel with such intuitively ‘gross’ attitudes, is so fraught with ambivalence. Sure, we should not censor the novel for religious reasons; but there may be other reasons to question the value of publishing it, since it appears to recommend pedophilia. Here is a quote:
“…the pain of consummation soon melted away. Muhammad was so gentle. I hardly felt the scorpion’s sting. To be in his arms, skin to skin, was the bliss I had longed for all my life.”
Well, now, at nine years old, does it really seem plausible that she had been hoping, all her life, to be skin to skin with Mohammed? This is an exaggeration which gives substance to something that you think is intuitively gross.
Not to mention, to be crude about it, the obvious question whether the introduction of Mo’s penis would really feel like a ‘scorpion’s sting’ to a nine-year-old child.
You see, OB, my past haunts me like a shadow! However – not to be outdone – maybe Mo was not particularly well endowed!
I won’t oppose any of you writing the paper. In the meantime, this issue in Yemen is more about religious nuttery than it is about pedophilic nuttery – and as you know I have no issue if it comes to writing profusely on former.
But Dave’s point was not about that – it was about how pedophile tendencies and pre-marital sex somehow were in a same league. They are not. The former makes direct victims.
What’s your combined point other than wanting to take issue with me? That I am off topic? That people somehow are in need of rational argument to avoid giving in to pedophilic tendencies in much the same way they need arguments on the complex issue of abortion?
Thanks OB. :-)
I fear that Gere’s letter will be all too representative of Guardianista opinion. :-(
Strangely, JoB, they are in the same league. It just depends on whom you speak to. Some people find sex with young girls acceptable and normal (Yemen is perhaps the most salient example). The same people could well be grossed out by the thought of pre-marital or extra-marital relations. This isn’t about who is or is not grossed out by what, but whether there are good reasons for condemning one and not the other. Your being grossed out is not enough.
http://timesonline.typepad.com/oliver_kamm/2008/10/free-speech-and.html?cid=133489259#comments
Gere turns up in discussion with Oliver Kamm – makes a feeble defence – seems to be more upset at the rudeness and arrogance of the publishers rather than at the murderous intentions of the bombers.
Eric, pedophily is a disease – sex is not – don’t you resonate with finding Mr Mo being a sick individual?
Did you miss the ‘True’ up there?
JoB, perhaps you are right, but don’t depend upon it. In the old Soviet Union dissidents were sent to psychiatric hospitals and wards. In Saudi Arabia a woman having a car crash is taken as evidence that women are not able to drive safely. I’d prefer to argue on the basis of morality. What is and is not considered to be sick is very variable. I don’t know about the truth of medical diagnosis. I wouldn’t rely on it, unless diagnosis is based on clearly assignable and treatable (or not, as the case may be) pathologies.
No, JoB, Dave’s point was not ‘about how pedophile tendencies and pre-marital sex somehow were in a same league.’ He didn’t say that, or anything much like it.
As for what our combined point is – it’s what we said it is. I think those of us who made it said it pretty clearly. With all due respect, I think we said it more clearly than you usually say what you say – so if you don’t get it, I don’t think that’s our fault.
Eric, you’re obviously right – disease is not 100% objective – morality isn’t either – both can be argued and in the 2 cases one may be wrong (variability, as you say).
Unless you’re a scientologist however, even psychiatric pathologies are quite less variable then most things labeled by the word ‘moral’ – e.g. pre-marital sex. There has been & still is clearly more abuse of ‘morality’ than there is abuse of psychiatry.
As to pedophily: do you really need an argument why it is incomparable to the other examples of Dave?
Ophelia,
Dave said that we need to argue – here as in abortion – our case in order for us to persuade people to agree with us (on not having sex with 9-year olds).
Now probably I overreacted (I did have a bad day) but there is someting wrong in that position – he cannot mean that we should persuade pedophiles, as they have a condition, not a position. Thus he has to mean there can be a position in which pedophily is defended, albeit with reasons that are false, let’s say the ‘Mo’ position: “this way the child gets love from a mature/stable friend” and that is what I resist. Pedophily’s not something that can be defended, it is not something we should honour with the reaction we would have against any real position.
If the crap book had been less crap it would not have lent credence to the Mo position.
There is no defense for a situation in which somebody defenseless is abused.
Gere digs himself into a rabbit warren in the comments at Kammo’s blog.
At least he admits his letter was an emotional response, though.
Just to clarify for the Guardian-challenged – Gere wrote this in a letter to the Guardian. At least two other letters pointing out his idiocy have since been published. What makes him a Guardianista and the people who disagree with him not?
“Just to clarify for the Guardian-challenged – Gere wrote this in a letter to the Guardian. At least two other letters pointing out his idiocy have since been published. What makes him a Guardianista and the people who disagree with him not?”
Because columns expressing terrific sensitivity to the feelings of those who threaten or in fact carry out violence on behalf of their religion have appeared in The Guardian.
I have a tangential question…
“A book advocating paedophilia could cause real harm to real children…”
How?
But in a culture in which sex with very young girls is religiously sanctioned, it is not a ‘condition’ or a disease, it’s just normal.
Thanks for that KB. It is shorthand – so for example someone called Bunting would be a Guardianista but someone called Grayling wouldn’t despite both having been published in the Guardian. I’m not clear how the letters page fits into this model, but I think I get how the term is used in general. Being a Guardianista puts you in the Guardian, but being in the Guardian doesn’t make you a Guardianista – and if you use the term al-Guardian it just means that you have no sense of humour but think you do.
Exactly, Ken. Bunting is a Guardianista but Timothy Garton Ash is not. Seumas Milne is a Guardianista but Jo Glanville is not. Not so much a newspaper, more a state of mind. Spotting a Guardianista makes an old Guardian reader ring up another old Guardian reader and howl, do you see what that anti-Enlightenment f’wit Bunting or that tankie Milne is saying now?
I agree that cultural relativism is false, and that if paedophilia is a disease then it is a disease in all cultures.
But I don’t agree that paedophilia is a disease. Fancying children is not a bodily impairment; it’s a psychological difference.
And a book advocating it would no more harm children than Delia Smith’s Complete Cookery Course.
Ben, I never said or implied books are to be banned.
Is sociopathy for you a ‘psycholigical difference’? I share scepticism toward psychology but implying that something mental is always merely a ‘difference’ is as nonsensical as psychoanalysis. I am not bent towards scientology.
PS: if a book would be published which express objective was to enable people to take secual advantage of children – hmm, right up there with the holocaust denial I’d say
Wait for this – did you know that the youngest mother in known history was Lina Medina, who was five years old when she gave birth in 1939. Unbelievable!
Oh, JoB, how can you possibly be 100% sure of that? You’re just making it up (at least, you certainly haven’t offered any evidence) so how can you manage 100% certainty?
Maybe you should look at some statistics about child (which means girl) marriage.
JoB, I think you’ve read things into my post that aren’t really there. I hate scientology and psychoanalysis. The word ‘psychological’ has a few different uses.
A disease is a bodily impairment. I meant that paedophilia is ‘psychological’ as opposed to bodily. But so is schizophrenia, and I suppose that is a disease, so let me move my emphasis from the ‘psychological’ stuff to the ‘difference’ stuff…
Paedophilia can’t be a bodily impairment, because it isn’t an impairment. There’s nothing impaired about paedophiles; their sex drive is in full working order.
I know you didn’t say anything about banning books. The blog entry said that a book advocating paedophilia could harm children, and I disagree.
Fair enough, Ophelia – outside of this 100% rhetorical hyperbole, do you have an issue with the rest I said there?
On the statistics, I assume you have a survey in which child marriage in some societies is the norm?
Ben, do schizophrenics all suffer from a lack of sex drive? What point do you want to make? Paedophilia is (yeah – I know this is from wikipedia)
“As a medical diagnosis, it is defined as a psychological disorder in which an adult experiences a sexual preference for prepubescent children.[1][2][3] According to the DSM, pedophilia is specified as a form of paraphilia in which a person either has acted on intense sexual urges towards children, or experiences recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about children that cause distress or interpersonal difficulty.”
I know some people tend to belittle it & some go back to Hellenic times to do it (or as in the present case to Mr Mo time) to paint romantic but, no cigar.
JoB, yes, I have an issue with the rest of it, but I’ve already said that, and as usual you answer at a tangent instead of directly, so I’m not going to bother saying it again. And I haven’t said that child marriage is the norm in some societies – but it is commonplace in some societies, and not seen as ‘a disease.’ As I said – look at some statistics. (Yes, I do have stats that child [girl] marriage in some societies is commonplace. I’ve linked to some here in the past.)
“…a form of paraphilia in which a person either has acted on intense sexual urges towards children, or experiences recurrent sexual urges towards and fantasies about children that cause distress or interpersonal difficulty.”
JoB, what about people who experience recurrent sexial urges towards and fantasies about children that DON’T cause distress or interpersonal difficulty? According to the wikipedia definition, such people aren’t quite paedophiles.
My understanding of paedophilia is that it necessarily involves wanting to have sex with children, and it doesn’t necessarily involve being distressed, socially challenged or impaired in any way.
But Ben, if some have it under control that is good on them & in the meantime I think you agree it is a disease.
Statistics:
http://www.childinfo.org/marriage.html
http://www.unfpa.org/upload/lib_pub_file/662_filename_endchildmarriage.pdf
Specifically slide 14 in the last link -‘commonplace’ & ‘most’ are not quite as precise so let the sad figures speak on it directly.
‘Too much!’, she says and, nodding his head affirmatively, he adds, with fear in his voice, ‘but still sick.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/oct/08/civilliberties
Gere bites back with blunt teeth.
In 1990, Pakistan ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits child marriage.
Also, under the Muslim Family Law Ordinance, a girl must be at least 16 years old and a boy at least 18 to marry and they both must give their consent free from any coercion.
So the government is responsible for allowing child marriages to take place as is not doing its duty in seeing that its laws are implemented.
“Teenage girls are more susceptible than mature women to sexually transmitted infections including HIV/AIDS. Furthermore, their vulnerability is dangerously increased because of the false belief in some places that if a man sleeps with a virgin, he’ll be cured of HIV/AIDS” said UNICEF.
So child brides suffer even more – with diabolical prospects of dreadful diseases hanging over them and the children they may bear.
JoB, you missed my point again.
Ben, shit happens – Mr. Mo married a 9-year old: sounds like the disease to me or do you think the correlation between men of the cloth & pedophily is because they just like to be nice to children?
JoB, you’re raising issues that I haven’t commented on. I was not at any point discussing Islam, Mohammad’s child bride or child marriage in general.
I was merely denying your claim that paedophilia is a disease, and Ophelia’s passing remark that a book advocating paedophilia could harm children. I’m not interested in straying from these topics at present.
To be pedantic (but not all that pedantic) – I didn’t say a pro-pedophilia book could harm children, I said such a book could cause harm to children. I did mean something different from harming children.
Oh… OB is Ophelia? Hello there. Well done for all the good blogging, I read your stuff every day.
Anyway, I’m not sure what distinction you’re trying to draw. If something harms, then it causes harm, and if it causes harm then it harms. So what’s the difference?
Hi Ben. (Did you think OB was someone else? Who? Just curious!)
I was saying that persuasion and the like can cause other people to do harm, as opposed to (directly) doing harm itself. The truth of that is debatable, but I think the distinction makes sense.
Okay, I understand the distinction.
I just thought you were one of your readers.